{"id":203392,"date":"2026-03-08T21:02:55","date_gmt":"2026-03-08T21:02:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/highlights-from-dominican-republics-lopsided-win-vs-netherlands-at-wbc-usa-today\/"},"modified":"2026-03-08T21:02:55","modified_gmt":"2026-03-08T21:02:55","slug":"highlights-from-dominican-republics-lopsided-win-vs-netherlands-at-wbc-usa-today","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/highlights-from-dominican-republics-lopsided-win-vs-netherlands-at-wbc-usa-today\/","title":{"rendered":"Highlights from Dominican Republic's lopsided win vs Netherlands at WBC – USA Today"},"content":{"rendered":"

The 2026 World Baseball Classic continues on Sunday, March 8, with Netherlands vs. Dominican Republic taking place in Miami at LoanDepot Park.
USA TODAY Sports is on the ground covering the WBC, bringing you behind the scenes with Team USA, Shohei Ohtani and baseball’s biggest global stars. Keep up with the latest scores and news<\/a> all the way through the grand finale in Miami to decide the WBC championship. Sign up for our daily sports newsletter<\/a> to get the biggest storylines straight to your inbox.
See the full tournament schedule here<\/a>.
Here’s everything you need to tune into Sunday’s action.
It wasn’t a traditional walk-off, but Juan Soto and the Dominican Republic will take it.
Soto capped an offensive outburst with a two-run home run in the bottom of the seventh inning to give the D.R. a 12-1 lead and trigger the WBC’s mercy rule in a win over the Netherlands.
Soto’s blast was one of four on the day for the Dominican team, which improved to 2-0 in pool play. Austin Wells, Junior Caminero and Valdimir Guerrero Jr. also went deep in the blowout.
New York Yankees<\/a> catcher Austin Wells connected for a two-run home run as part of a six-run outburst in the bottom of the fifth inning to give the Dominican Republic a commanding 10-1 lead over the Netherlands. Wells’ round-tripper came two batters after Junior Caminero also went deep.
The Domincans added another run after the two homers when Ketel Marte scored on a sacrifice fly by Erik Gonzalez.
The Dutch are in danger of having the game end on a mercy rule<\/a>. Play stops if a team leads by at least 15 runs after five innings or 10 runs after seven innings.
We may be approaching blowout territory. Domincan Republic designated hitter Junior Caminero matched Vladimir Guerrero Jr.’s RBI total with one swing of the bat in the bottom of the fifth inning.
The third baseman for the Tampa Bay Rays during the regular season, Caminero blasted a three-run homer to left to break open the Pool D game against the Netherlands and put his team up 7-1.
Caminero, who hit 45 home runs last season for the Rays, also went deep during the D.R.’s 12-3 win over Nicaragua on Friday.
A hanging breaking ball from new pitcher Eric Mendez had no chance against the powerful bat of Vladimir Guerrero Jr. in the bottom of the third inning.
The Toronto Blue Jays<\/a> slugger picked up his second and third RBIs of the game when he took Mendez deep down the left field line for a two-run home run that gave the Dominican Republic a 4-1 lead. Guerrero’s first home of the WBC plated Ketel Marte, who drew a leadoff walk that finished off Netherlands starter Arij Fransen.
Eleven-year MLB veteran Didi Gregorius homered off former New York Yankees teammate Luis Severino in the top of the second inning as the Netherlands sliced the Dominican Republic’s lead in half in the top of the second inning.
Gregorius launched a 98 mph fastball from Severino 357 feet to right field, just clearing the glove of a leaping Fernando Tatis Jr. and banging off the outfield railing.
Gregorius originally signed with the Cincinnati Reds<\/a> in 2007 as an amateur free agent. He spent two seasons with the Arizona Diamondbacks<\/a> before going to the New York Yankees in a three-way trade after the 2014 season. He had his greatest success with the Yankees, earning MVP votes in 2017 and 2018, and playing in eight postseason series.
He spent the final three seasons of his MLB career in Philadelphia from 2020-2022.
Vladimir Guerrero Jr. came through in the bottom of the first inning to get the Dominican squad off to a quick start.
After a pair of walks by Dutch starter Arij Fransen, Guerrero drilled a one-out rope into left field to score Fernando Tatis Jr. with the first run of the game.
The D.R. added another run when Netherlands shortstop Xander Bogaerts made a wild throw in an attempt to turn an inning-ending double play.
The Dominican Republic will have a home field advantage in Miami \u2212 in addition to having one on the pitcher’s mound. Veteran major leaguer Luis Severino of the Athletics<\/a> will start the game for the Dominicans. He’ll match up against 24-year-old former Reds prospect Arij Fransen. The Reds released Fransen at the end of the season and he’s since signed with Winnipeg of the independent American Association.
Severino is a two-time All-Star who went 8-11 with a 4.54 ERA last season for the A’s.
Fransen went 4-4 with a 6.34 ERA in 2025 at Class AA Chattanooga.
SP Luis Severino
Manager: Albert Pujols
Arizona Diamondbacks shortstop Geraldo Perdomo will not start today’s game against the Dutch after coming down with an illness before the game.
In his place, recent roster addition Erik Gonzalez will start at short and bat ninth for the Dominican squad. Gonzalez has seven seasons of MLB experience but hasn’t played in the majors since 2022. He was just activated by the Dominican Republic after Houston Astros<\/a> shortstop Jeremy Pen\u0303a suffered a broken finger during a game last week.
SP Arij Fransen
Manager: Andruw Jones
The 20 teams are divided into four groups. They are:
Teams play one game each against the other four teams in their pool. The top two teams from each pool advance to the knockout rounds in Houston and Miami. Teams are re-seeded after the quarterfinals.
Teams that remain tied in the standings following round robin play will be seeded based on the following criteria:
Pool play games will occur from March 4 to March 11. Quarterfinals begin on March 13. The semifinals begin March 15.
The championship game is set for March 17 in Miami.
Our team of savvy editors independently handpicks all recommendations. If you purchase through our links, the USA TODAY Network may earn a commission. Prices were accurate at the time of publication but may change.<\/em>
Information in this article was imported automatically into a template written and reviewed by a USA TODAY Sports editor. You can send feedback using this form.<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

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The 2026 World Baseball Classic continues on Sunday, March 8, with Netherlands vs. Dominican Republic taking place in Miami at LoanDepot Park.USA TODAY Sports is on the ground covering the WBC, bringing you behind the scenes with Team USA, Shohei Ohtani and baseball’s biggest global stars. Keep up with the latest scores and news all […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":203393,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-203392","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world","8":"entry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/203392","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=203392"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/203392\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/203393"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=203392"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=203392"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=203392"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}